◆ Safety overview, including evacuation and emergency procedures.
◆ Develop a training plan.
◆ Initial jobs are “freshman” jobs (easier jobs)
◆ Begin with one or two hours of work, followed by one or two hours of
offline work
◆ Determine goal for training—three jobs within three months
◆ Long-term assimilation into team and group activities.
◆ Quality Circles
◆ 5S
◆ Preshift and postshift duties
◆ Suggestions system and continuous improvement
◆ Mentoring and developing.
Each group has some slight variation, depending on the needs of the group,
but follows the same general format. Full assimilation into the Toyota culture
might take a year or more, but there are milestones along the way, marked with
progress reviews and wage increases if the progress was satisfactory. A “proba-
tionary” period of six months applied to all new hires. During this time the work
progress and attendance record are evaluated (poor attendance is a sure way to
get cut from the team).
Responsibility for teaching, mentoring, and coaching falls to the group leader,
who sets expectations for training, but the team leader normally carries out the
actual training (although the group leader is also a skilled trainer and may do
some actual training). Toyota uses a very specific method called Job Instruction
Training for all training.
Job Instruction Training: The Key to Developing Exceptional Skill Levels
One of the most common complaints we hear when we talk to associates at all
companies is that there is a lack of effective training. We find that something as
important as learning the correct way to perform work is often left to chance.
No consistent method is used, trainers are not identified—and if they are, they
have not received formal training—and the specific requirements for perform-
ing the work are not clearly identified. The training of employees takes a low
priority on the list of leaders’ duties (leaders who are often spread too thin and
can’t make time for the individual needs of every employee). We could probably
write an entire book of stories related to poor training, but the following story
sums up the problem.
During a plant tour one afternoon, we were observing an operation and trying
to understand flow and the balance of operations. It wasn’t completely clear what
was happening so we decided to ask an operator (call her Mary) a question about
her task. When approaching Mary, she had a wide-eyed “deer in the headlights”
Chapter 11. Develop Exceptional Team Associates 247